Bones
by skyewardfitzsimmonsphilinda
Summary: Based on this tumblr prompt: "Can you do a fic based on the song "in my bones" by Ron pope?" And this: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
1. Bones

_My angel with her dirty wings, she used to make me smile,  
But she kept all of her secrets locked inside,  
In a place I could not reach her, though I tried with all my might,  
And when I begged for something real she said goodbye._

_It's my fault, I don't care,  
I can't hate you if you're not here,  
Once you go, never, ever turn around._

_I have sacrificed, and then I burned,  
Oh, you gotta live before you learn.  
I wanted the truth, but sometimes the truth hurts._

_And I am sure I'll be just fine,  
if I remember she wasn't ever mine._

_And the truth about the two of us, is we don't make no sense,  
when we made love, our love was just pretend.  
Now I'm trying to forget her, though I feel her in my bones,  
and I wonder if she thinks of me at all.  
_

It had been six months since Ward had seen Skye.

She'd called him a monster then, her eyes full of tears but covered with a hard sheen he barely recognized.

She had been right, of course, Ward thought grimly. There wasn't much she was wrong about.

"Garrett needs you upstairs," Deathlok's voice whipped him into defense mode, and Ward scowled at the soldier.

"What does he want?" Ward said roughly.

"To know what's wrong with you," Garrett said sharply, and Ward turned to see that his mentor was leaning against the doorframe, his stare cold.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Give us a minute," Garrett said to Deathlok, and the soldier departed, his eye trained on Ward until the door had shut behind him. "So what the hell is with you, Ward? You're not still moping about the girl, are you?"

Ward stood up straighter, his hand reaching for the staff that lay on the table.

"No," Garrett stopped him. "You've been handling the Berserker often enough lately."

"It's a useful tool."

"It's a crutch," Garrett said sharply. "Don't tell me you need to rely on some piece of alien technology just to get your head in the goddamn game?"

"My head is in the game," Ward said coldly. "Though the fact that you gave out a kill order on me hasn't slipped my memory."

"You were never in danger," Garrett said dismissively. "Your girl would never have let you die."

"She's not my girl," Ward snarled, slamming his fist into a stack of empty weapon crates. "And she never was."

Garrett smirked. "You've been so goddamn blind this whole time," he said, his face hardening. "I sent you in on a covert op—an op that was supposed to be about gather intel that could _save my life_—and all you managed to do was fall in love."

"I'm not in love," Ward snapped, turning away. "And I did what you wanted. I got the intel. I kept you one step ahead when you needed to be, and now we have all the goddamn research Coulson's team did. What more do you want?"

Ward knew he was crossing a hundred lines here, but he didn't care.

"I'm so tired—I'm _so goddamn tired_ of letting you play games with my life," he nearly shouted. "You were ready to kill me, and I have sacrificed everything, _everything_, for you."

Garrett, who at first had looked surprised, then outraged, now turned to him coldly. "You forget that I saved you. I saved your life, Grant Ward, and I saved your fucking _soul_ when it did not deserve to be saved."

Ward couldn't look at him. "You were ready to throw me away," he said quietly, regaining some slight control. "And she wasn't."

"She hates you, Ward. You betrayed her from day one, so don't act like you deserve any better."

Ward gritted his teeth. "I never said I deserved better," he said. "I just didn't expect to be burned by you after I gave up everything for you. I guess I didn't realize how dispensable I was to you."

Garrett's mouth stiffened into a hard line. "Don't you dare say that. Don't you fucking _dare_."

Ward looked up at him now, his stare challenging and arrogant. _Monster_, he heard Skye's voice in the back of his head. _Disgusting. Backstabbing. Rot in hell. _

"You deserved nothing—you deserved to _die_, and I rescued you, Ward," Garrett said, stepping closer until his face was inches from Ward's. "Don't forget who kept you out of jail when you were fourteen. Don't forget who rescued you when you were about to put a bullet through your own brain. And don't forget all of the time I saved your ass on a mission. Paris. Warsaw. Manhattan. And Prague? Do you remember that, Ward? Do you remember who carried your useless ass out of a collapsing building? Do you remember who took a fucking _bullet to the gut_ to save your worthless life?"

Ward stood still, gutted by his mentor's words. "I don't forget," he said, his voice ragged. "But why"—he paused, his throat clenching with emotion. "Why did she keep my heart beating? Why did it matter if my heart stopped, if she didn't care? If none of it was real?" He looked up at Garrett now, at his mentor's intense gaze, guilt and regret and shame washing through him.

_You're pathetic. _

_Pathetic. Disgusting, weak, useless. And after all he did for you, you're still weak enough to care about some girl who fooled you into thinking your heart was worth saving? _

Garrett was looking down at him in disgust.

"After all I've done for you," he said slowly, shaking his head. "And you still care more about some hacker?"

"I don't care more about her," Ward protested feebly. _And she's not just some hacker. But you're not just my SO, either. _"I'm… sorry, sir," he said.

"You're _sorry_?" Garrett scoffed. "I need to know I can trust you, Ward. I need to know you have your head in the game."—

"Hit me," Ward interrupted, feeling shame uncurl in the pit of his stomach as it always did when he said the words.

It was relief he felt when Garrett did as he asked.

Relief he felt when fists on his jaw drove away the memory of kisses. Relief he felt when blows to the ribs erased the memory of a girl who brought his heart back to life.

Relief, because everything Ward had done, all the ways he has failed Skye, all the truth he had bled that day on the Bus; all of it fell away under John Garrett's fists.

It was like a baptism—and afterwards, when Garrett's fists were bloody and Ward was on the ground, broken, it felt like he had been made new.

"Are you alright?" Garrett asked softly, and when he reached out his hand, Ward took it. Garrett pulled him to his feet, and Ward looked away again. "We need to get to work," Garrett said briskly, but his hand stayed on Ward's shoulder a moment longer. "And it's good to know that you have my back, kid. That I can trust you after all."

"Yes, sir."

Just then, the door flew open, and a terrified foot soldier stood in front of them. "Sir—we've been trying to tell you—your com's down—SHIELD—here—compromised"—

Garrett and Ward drew their guns as one, and Ward gripped the staff in his gloved hand.

Garrett grinned, that odd, charismatic grin that thrilled and repulsed Ward simultaneously. "Ready to play, kid?"

Ward nodded.

_Coulson, please tell me you didn't let Skye come on this raid. _

_Please. _

The foot soldier had rejoined his commander, and Garrett and Ward crept through the compound, finding unconscious soldiers at every turn, but no SHIELD agents.

"Search the main corridor," Garrett ordered. "I'm going above."

"Sir?" Ward said. "Be careful."

Garrett nodded. "You too, kid."

And when Ward rounded the corner to the main corridor, it was to find himself face to face with Skye and Coulson, their guns pointed straight at his heart.


	2. Heartbeat

_Skye. With a gun. Pointed at his heart. _

"I can take you both," he said coldly, trying to stop his voice from shaking.

Coulson's face was impassive, but his finger tightened on the trigger. "You won't pull that trigger, Ward," he said softly. "It's not in you to pull that trigger."

"You know nothing of what it takes to pull the trigger," Ward said savagely.

Skye leveled the gun evenly at his chest. "I know more than you think," she said harshly, but to his surprise he saw tears in her eyes. "And you aren't going to hurt me, Ward."

"Drop the weapons, Agent Coulson," Garrett appeared, smirking, behind Coulson and Skye, his guns trained on them. "Don't make me put a bullet in the girl's head."

Ward paled.

If he touched her—

"Bring them to the interrogation room," Garrett ordered. "Maybe we can make Raina's newest invention useful. I'm going to find his team of scientists."

Ward took their weapons, keeping his expression neutral.

He knew the device Garrett was talking about. It was Raina's particular favorite, a device that harnessed the energy of the Berserker staff to bring back a subject's worst memories, while applying intense pain to the most sensitive nerves in the human body.

It was guaranteed to bring answers.

Ward had used it—he had put men in that chair, and he had been in that chair himself.

He had been the only one who hadn't cracked. It was a pain he was used to.

And there was no way in _hell _Skye was going to go through that.

Ward led them to the interrogation room.

_You owe him everything_, he tried to tell himself. _If he needs answers, it's your job to make sure he gets them… _

"I saw it, you know," Skye said abruptly, and Ward looked at her in silence.

"I cracked your security feeds," she continued, and Ward saw that the tears were streaming down her face now, though her eyes were still flashing with anger. "I saw what happened right before we stormed the complex."

Ward handcuffed Coulson, who watched him with that impassive, almost sad, look on his face.

"What did you see?" Ward asked her coldly, handcuffing her.

"I saw him hit you," she said, her voice breaking, and Ward nearly jumped back, away from her. "And—and I saw you ask."

Ward shoved her down beside Coulson, his hands shaking with rage and shame and fear. "Say another word and I'll"—

"Put a bullet in me? Because he took a bullet for you?" she asked fearlessly, scrambling to her feet. "I don't _care_ what he did for you once upon a time. He throws it in your face every other day because he has to; because he_ needs_ you."

"I owe him everything," Ward said coldly. "And now it's up to me to save his life."

"He was willing to throw yours away!" Skye shouted, tears dripping from her face. "Don't you _see_ that? He doesn't give a shit about you. He never did. You're a weapon, Grant, you're nothing but a weapon"—

"Well then at least I'm a weapon for the winning side," he said, and Skye shook her head.

"The rest of our team is gone," she said quietly. "May got them to safety after she got us inside. I set the hard drive to self-destruct, so all the research is gone. You'll never know about the drug that saved Coulson and I. You'll never know any of it."

"Then why are you still here?" Ward snapped. "Why didn't you leave with her?"

Skye was silent, and Coulson looked up at him.

"It was for you," Coulson said softly. "She came back for you."

Ward staggered at the words, and then he turned on Skye savagely. "You were supposed to forget me," he snarled, leaning into her face, spittle flying from his lips. "I made my choices, I made my sacrifices, and you made yours. You should have left and never looked back. _Why did you come for me_?"

"For the same reason I made your heart start beating again," Skye said coldly, standing straight and tall. "It's not weakness, Grant, and it's not forgiveness, because you're a murderer, and nothing will change that. But it's a chance. It's a chance to make the right decision, because you don't owe Garrett anything. Not anymore."

Ward shook his head. "I can't save you," he said. "I can't do anything. I never could."

"You told me once about the well," Skye said, and Ward flinched. She continued anyway, seeming not to notice his reaction. "You told me you weren't able to throw your little brother a rope because your big brother wouldn't let you. You couldn't save him. You couldn't save anyone. But little brother can save you."

Ward squinted at her in confusion. "What the hell are you saying, Skye?"

"I don't know what I'm saying," she said harshly. "But I saw what Garrett did to you, and no one deserves that."

"I do," he said immediately, and he saw her face twist with pain.

"Ward." It was Coulson, and his voice was quiet.

Almost gentle.

"Ward, I know where you came from," he says calmly. "I know what happened. I know about your family. I know what you were. And I know what you can still be, Ward. It's your choice."

"Stop. Talking."

"I don't _need_ to know where you came from," Skye hurled the words at him. "Nothing excuses what you've done, but you can't believe you owe him. After everything he's done to you."

"He saved me."

"He put you through hell."

"It was to make me stronger."

"Was it, Ward? Was it? When he broke your ribs? When he beat you, over and over again to make sure you never believed you deserved better? When he shot me? When he tried to stop your freaking heart? Or what about when he ordered you to turn on people you loved? And don't tell me you didn't love us, Ward, because I don't give a shit what you're going to say, you _loved_ us. And that's the worst of what you did. You loved us. You were _happy_ with us, Ward, and you followed orders anyway, because you didn't believe you deserved to be happy."

"I don't," he said truthfully.

"_Stop saying that_!" Skye was yelling now, and it was killing him to see the tears pouring down her face.

"You said it yourself," he said, turning away from them both. "I don't deserve forgiveness. But you deserve to be happy, Skye," he said, and it took all of his willpower to keep his voice from breaking. "The only real thing I had was how I felt about you, and I didn't deserve to feel that way, so I tried to say goodbye. I _tried_, Skye," his voice cracked slightly. "I tried so damn hard to let you go, and you came back. Why. Why. _Why_ did you have to come back?"

"Ward, I need answers from the girl," Garrett's voice said into his ear piece, and Ward could barely breathe.

"Understood, sir."

He turned to face them.

This was it. He had to choose. Had to save one and lose one.

"Are you going to put me in there?" Skye asked, her voice finally calm.

Ward stared at her.

"I saw what happened when Garrett put you in that chair," she said. "I saw everything. I cracked all of your feeds. And I wish to god I hadn't cracked this one."

Ward stared at both of them for a long, long moment. _You have to, Ward. You don't have a choice. You have to save him—_

"Grant."

It was Skye again.

Calling his name, like a plea that somehow still sounded of hope.

_No one but Skye had called him Grant in years. _

_Guardian_, she had said his name meant. _Great guardian. Protector. Warrior. _

Ward swallowed hard.

_Just do what you have to do, Ward. _

_Grant. _

_Grant. _

_Grant. _

"I brought you back once. Let me do it again," she said, and Ward looked straight into her eyes. Finally.

And he knew he was going to do whatever it took to save the light in those eyes.

_Because she had called him by the name that was only a ghost of what he was. _

_Because ever since she had said "pieces solving a puzzle," he had wanted nothing more than to be a piece of her puzzle. _

_Because he had been a monster all his life and her eyes shone with humanity. _

_Because he had betrayed her and she had still made his heart beat again. _

_Because she had come back for him. She always came back for him. _

_Because she had believed there was still something in him left to save when there was nothing but darkness…_

"Go," he said. And then he reached out and removed the handcuffs from Skye's hands and then Coulson's. "Take the stairs to exit the compound on the left. May will get you to safety."

"You're coming with us," Skye said stubbornly.

Ward shook his head sadly.

"I'm staying here to keep Garrett from following you."

"That's suicide."

"No," he said softly. "That's a choice. The first time I've had a choice."

"Grant," she begged. "Grant, you have to come with us."

Coulson took her hand, pulling her away. "Come on, Skye."

He looked at Ward, and then nodded. "You told me once that you can't save someone from themselves. Do you still believe that's true?"

"You told me that you could if you got to them soon enough," Ward said. "I guess you got to me soon enough."

He closed his eyes briefly, steeling himself for the inevitable, and watched Coulson tug Skye away.

It was easy, after that.

Knowing she would be safe.

Ward knocked the Hydra agents unconscious, his gun remaining in his belt.

She wouldn't have wanted him to keep killing.

He moved quickly, methodically, relieved that, finally, he had made his choice.

No more conflict.

No more shame.

Skye, not Garrett.

Hope, not fear.

He had saved something worth saving.

Garrett found him near the entrance. "You lost them?"

"I let them go."

Garrett raised his gun. "Let me pass."

Ward shook his head.

"I saved her," he said quietly. "And you saved me once, a long time ago, and I have paid my debt. It's written on the scars you've inflicted on me.

But Skye goes deeper.

She is the reason my heart beats even when you tried to stop it.

So I saved her. I did something right, for the first time in my shit-hole of a life."

His gun clattered to the floor.

_No more killing, Grant. No more. _

Garrett was staring at him, his face unreadable. "I should never have trusted you with that team."

"No," Ward said softly. "You shouldn't have."

"You're going to die."

"I know."

"You're going to die a traitor. Was it worth it, Ward? Dying for this?"

"My name is Grant," he said quietly, standing straight and tall and free, for the first time in his life. "My name is _Grant_, and I am doing this for her. For Skye. And it is worth it, because I'm not just saving them. I'm saving myself."

And when the bullet came, he was ready.

Because he wasn't asking for it; wasn't asking for a punishment he thought he deserved.

Because this time it was for something worth dying for.

He heard plane engines as the Bus left, carrying Skye to safety, and it was vaguely and faintly, as if he was far away or deep under water.

Another bullet. Two to the gut.

He would bleed out in less than two minutes, he knew that. He had seen it happen before.

For her…

And then he was falling… falling…falling…

_Can I be forgiven for what I've done? Can I be forgiven for what it's taken me to get here? _

_I don't deserve it. _

_I know I don't. _

_And then he thought he saw her, or some shade of her who had come to stay at his side while his life bled away beneath him. _

_Skye. _

_Dark eyes, filled with light the way they had so often before the betrayal. _

_That's the thing about forgiveness, she seemed to say. It's not deserved. It's a gift. _

_But do you know what you deserve, Grant? At the end of all of this? You deserve to be the piece to someone's puzzle. The piece to ours. _

_And you deserve hope, Grant Douglas Ward. _

_You always have. _

He couldn't see the room anymore, couldn't see Garrett, but it didn't matter. Without the cure on the destroyed hard drive, the man only had days to live. And Skye was safe now. They were all safe.

It was quiet here. So very quiet. He had thought it would be dark, but it was overwhelmingly, breathtakingly white, as if the light of the sky had flooded his body, seeped into his skin, invaded his very bones.

But this didn't feel like ending, dying. It felt as if Grant Ward had been drowning his whole life, and someone had finally thrown him a rope.


	3. Epilogue

The team was silent for a long time when Coulson told them the news.

"Where's Skye?" May was the first to break the silence.

"In her bunk. She needs some space."

FitzSimmons nodded as one, and Triplett stepped back.

"Is she alright?" May was persistent.

"Are any of us?" Coulson asked softly, and May laid a hand on his arm. He wrapped an arm over her shoulder, pulling her closer.

It was Triplett who found Skye later that night.

She was on what had been Ward's bunk once, and she was curled into a ball, holding one of the blankets to her chest.

Trip leaned against the door frame, hesitant. "Are you okay?"

"It still smells of him," she said.

"Coulson told us what you did back there," he said gently. "Saving Ward? That's a call few people would have made."

"I didn't save him," she said. "I just showed him how to save himself."

"I wanted to hate him, you know," Trip said abruptly, looking away. "Both of them. But you managed to find what was still human in Grant Ward, and that's a fucking miracle."

Skye looked up at him, her eyes fierce even as they filled with tears. "He could have been so much," she said softly. "He could have been anything. And John Garrett destroyed him."

Trip looked at her sadly. "Ward made the right choice today, though. Garrett didn't destroy everything."

"He could have been a good man," Skye said. "And Garrett killed him. I'm sure he did."

"Do you want to know for sure?"

"Coulson won't let me look at the satellite feeds," Skye said.

"The place is cleared, but we could go back and look if you want," Trip said slowly. "So you could have some closure."

The compound was nearly empty when the team returned.

No guards, no sign of life, not even any last traps set by Garrett or his men.

Coulson had asked Skye to wait in the Bus until they found something, but she had snuck out while Simmons distracted Coulson and Trip.

It was Skye who found the body.

It was lying near the top entrance, and the last light of the sun touched on his face.

She said nothing.

Didn't even cry.

She just stood, staring emptily at the shell of the man she had known, at the stain of blood spread around him, at his cold face.

Coulson placed a hand on her arm.

"We should go back to the Bus, Skye."

"We should give him a proper burial," she said stubbornly, and then tears were rolling down her face. She stepped forward slowly, and then reached out a hand to touch Ward's body. "Grant," she whispered. "Oh, Grant."

"Skye." It was May who pulled her away, several long minutes later. "It's time to go."

Skye turned wordlessly and leaned into May's shoulder, her body shaking silently with sobs.

They buried him away from the compound, on a hill overlooking a small lake. It was a peaceful place, one of them tried to say encouragingly. He would have liked that.

But the words were meaningless and they all knew it. Knew Grant Ward had never known peace.

The team was silent for a long moment, and then Coulson took May's hand and they turned away. Triplett followed, and Fitz reached out a shaking hand to touch the small wooden marker they had placed over the grave. Simmons closed her hand over his, and then led him away.

Skye stood alone at the top of the hill.

"I had so many things to say to you," she said slowly, her voice quavering. "I was so angry. Maybe I still am. We were supposed to have more time than this, Grant"—

Her voice broke, and she dropped to a crouch, her shoulders bent.

She reached out to carve something onto the wooden marker. A verse. "I told you once that no one deserved the punishment that you thought you did," she said softly. "I hope you believed that by the end."

Skye stood slowly, drawing a shaky breath.

"Goodbye, Grant."

She turned, and slowly walked away towards the family waiting for her at the bottom of the hill.

Behind her, the light of the sinking sun struck the wooden grave-marker, illuminating the words scratched roughly there.

_Grant Douglas Ward_

_And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. _

_But the greatest of these is love._


End file.
